(Avoca) Avoca Main Street, Inc. was one of 14 communities to receive a Main Street Iowa Challenge Grant from the Iowa Economic Development Authority.
Amber Mohr, Avoca Main Street Director, said the Challenge Grant is the highest grant level that Main Street Iowa offers to its district communities.
“We were fortunately awarded the full grant amount of $75,000 in matching funds to help renovate the Edward Carroll Building in downtown Avoca,” said Mohr. “Our total project cost is projected to be close to $390,000 for the total building rehab and this will fill a really needed gap in that block of our Main Street; it’s the final building block on that whole row in order to get renovation and so we will be looking very sharp after this is all done.”
The Edward Carroll Building is currently fully occupied.
“It has a nonprofit Small City Resource center upstairs, it has Stepping Stones Preschool and Daycare downstairs as well as Hoffman Insurance downstairs,” explained Mohr. “The way they have chosen to renovate the upper story space that is currently unoccupied is to create a similar one to the one that the Small City Resource Institute uses which is sort of a hybrid between an apartment and an office space so it can be easily converted back to residential or to commercial if necessary, so that will be giving us a lot of flexibility in our downtown.”
Main Street Challenge Grants benefit local improvement projects including total building rehabilitations, upper story housing renovations and façade restorations. Since the first Challenge Grants were awarded in 2002, approximately $11.6 million in state and federal funds have leveraged more than $59 million in private investment. Over the life of the program, 193 projects in 56 Main Street Iowa commercial districts across the state have received funding.
